


but then i felt your touch

by seeingrightly



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are quiet, for a bit, after Gansey dies and comes back again. After Aurora dies and doesn’t. After Noah leaves, after Cabeswater leaves too and Adam feels something in him switch off.</p>
<p>He thinks, sometimes, it would be appropriate to say he feels more grounded now, now that he’s not prone to floating away behind his eyelids, but Cabeswater had rooted him to this place in a way his name and his blood and his bruises never could, so: perhaps not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but then i felt your touch

**Author's Note:**

> uh there is a line of dialogue in here that i lifted from mad men because i'm a weirdo so i guess bonus points to you if you spot it?
> 
> title from miike snow's "pretender," because that word gets thrown at adam in bllb, and now it's stuck in my head forever
> 
> thx 2 [melissa](theverytiredgirl.tumblr.com) and [alicia](ravenboiz.tumblr.com) for editing
> 
> NOW WITH [FANART OF THE LAST SCENE](https://thaidoodles.tumblr.com/post/147909224297/but-then-i-felt-your-touch-by-seeingrightly-on) THANKS TO [THAIDOODLES](https://thaidoodles.tumblr.com)!!!!

Things are quiet, for a bit, after Gansey dies and comes back _again_. After Aurora dies and doesn’t. After Noah leaves, after Cabeswater leaves too and Adam feels something in him switch off.

 

He thinks, sometimes, it would be appropriate to say he feels more grounded now, now that he’s not prone to floating away behind his eyelids, but Cabeswater had rooted him to this place in a way his name and his blood and his bruises never could, so: perhaps not.

 

Things are quiet, except when they aren’t, when Ronan is crying messily or thrashing in his sleep. Everyone once in a while he’ll throw something, break something, but it’s not like it must’ve been the first time, the other time he lost a parent. He’s not angry the way he must have been last time, they way he stayed until Adam met him, the way he stayed until the end of junior year when Kavinsky died.

 

Adam doesn’t like to think that Kavinsky was responsible for bringing Ronan to a better place, but something about that last day with Kavinsky did something, and Ronan ended up better for it.

 

He’s not breaking things out of anger this time. This time he’s sad.

 

Adam stands on the back porch and watches as Ronan hurls objects across the field. He’s not really sure what they are, if they’re fresh dreams or were pulled from one of the barns, and he’s not sure what they do, if Ronan even knows.

 

He throws until something lands with an unsettling crack, and then he sits down in the grass, and Adam goes to sit next to him.

 

Adam thinks he just needs to hear something. It’s too quiet, for a bit.

 

-

 

Ronan doesn’t come back to school, and no one makes him.

 

Adam panics, briefly, that they’ll never see each other, if Ronan’s not in school and they no longer have a quest and Adam always has work and Ronan spends more of his time now at the Barns than at Monmouth.

 

Instead, they spend time in cars. Well, they always have, but not like this.

 

They’re squished together in the backseat of the Pig as they head to Nino’s, since Blue’s in the front holding Gansey’s hand across the console.

 

Henry leans forward on Adam’s left to yell something in Gansey’s ear. On his right, Ronan leans in close to _his_ ear.

 

“We’re hanging out at your place after this,” he says, just loud enough for Adam to hear him.

 

“Maybe I have work later,” Adam says. “Or homework.”

 

“You don’t,” Ronan says. “Someone asked you to switch shifts. And you already wrote your essay.”

 

Adam stares for a second, and then, horribly, he feels his face go slightly pink.

 

_Known_.

 

“Stalker,” he says, elbowing Ronan in the side, and Ronan catches it, keeps it there, his smirk close.

 

Adam kisses him, quick, darts in and out, and Ronan looks surprised and pleased.

 

“Gross,” Blue says, very loudly, and Ronan leans forward to jab at her side.

 

-

 

Adam picks up rocks, sometimes.

 

They’re sitting in the grass between two of Ronan’s barns. Ronan has his chin on Adam’s shoulder as they watch Opal chase Chainsaw up a tree, as far as her peculiar legs can manage. Ronan’s breath is steady against the shell of Adam’s working ear, and so is his pulse, where their skin meets, Ronan’s throat at the worn collar of Adam’s shirt. Adam drifts to that rhythm, cut with staccato cawing from one dream-thing to another, letting his eyes close.

 

If he were another Adam, he could scry to this, this steady feeling, this tether.

 

But he’s this Adam, and this Adam stays very present. He doesn’t want that to be a bad thing. It’s _not_ a bad thing. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want the other thing, too.

 

His fingers, in the grass, find a small rock, mostly smooth but for one rough edge, where it was pressed into the earth. He rubs a thumb over it, but he’s not in Cabeswater because there is no Cabeswater, and he’s not another Adam because there’s only this one, now, so all he feels is dirt.

 

-

 

They make out in the BMW, parked outside Monmouth before Ronan drives him home. Ronan’s hands are on either side of his face and the gear shift is digging into Adam’s thigh and when he presses his palm to Ronan’s chest, he feels a shaky inhale.

 

“Okay,” Ronan says, pulling back entirely. “Okay, okay. You have a test in the morning. Okay.”

 

His keys miss the ignition twice.

 

Adam reels him back in.

 

-

 

Adam sits on the edge of Henry’s hot tub, on the Litchfield deck, his legs cooking as his arms goosebump. It’s just shy of too cold to be doing this, and it feels very Aglionby, and Adam doesn’t know if he loves it or hates it. The trunks he’s wearing are Gansey’s and his farmer’s tan is on full display, but he feels less self-conscious than he would have not too long ago, not least because he’s dating an actual farmer.

 

Henry’s shivering a few feet away as he sets up a playlist with some terrible summer-themed name, despite it being well into the fall, and Gansey’s trying to open the sliding door to the deck with his foot as he carries an armful of fancy sodas. Blue, laughing, gets the door for him.

 

“Thank you, Jane,” Gansey says, sounding immensely relieved and even more fond.

 

Blue takes one of the sodas and winks at him, somehow managing to make the gesture condescending and sweet at the same time.

 

Adam doesn’t quite look away as Blue heads over to the hot tub. She’s got a yellow two-piece on, and a tank top that’s been ripped to shreds, and some kind of crocheted or knitted wrap thing on her lower half, and flip flops that have broken and been repaired more than once. She takes most of it off to climb into the tub.

 

She looks… very her, and very good, and he looks away before she notices he’s noticed and punches him in the arm.

 

Adam finds it odd, sometimes, that he’d been attracted to Blue right away, and yet it took time with Ronan. It’s the same want, the same hunger, the need to touch, to grip harder than he should, to take what’s offered and shake for more. With Blue, it was a constant simmer, never satisfied and building for it, ebbing a little when they fought, when he was angry, but always simmering and anticipatory.

 

The part of him that wanted Blue wasn’t erased when things fell apart between them, and it wasn’t erased when he started to want Ronan, or when he got him - but it feels different when you expect something to happen and when you don’t. When he looks at Blue, it feels like an acknowledgment now, rather than a desire.

 

As she settles into the water, holding her soda away from the bubbles, she kicks Adam gently in the shin.

 

“Hey,” she says, and he slides down the rest of the way until they’re settled, side to side and up to their necks.

 

“Hey,” he says, and Blue toasts him with her soda before twisting off the cap and then staring at it forlornly.

 

“Henry,” she calls. “Henry Henry Henry.”

 

“What?” Henry replies, distracted, still focused on setting up the music.

 

Gansey comes over to hand Adam a soda and takes both of their caps and deposits them into some environmentally-conscious container, and Blue smiles, and then Ronan crash-lands in the hot tub and startles them both.

 

“Ronan,” Blue complains, holding her soda higher as the water sloshes.

 

Ronan grins at her, sharp, and leans forward. Adam startles again when Ronan’s hands find his knees, and something sharp happens in his stomach, but Ronan continues until he finds the arm that isn’t holding Adam’s soda, and then he tugs until Adam moves awkwardly across the hot tub to sit next to him.

 

Once they’re settled, Ronan grips his thigh, just once, quick, and then grabs and keeps his hand.

 

Adam never expects, never expected Ronan. With Blue, there was some kind of expectation from the start, and maybe that’s where the difference lies. In a way, Ronan started out as an acknowledgment. _Oh, he wants me. Oh, I’m pleased by that. Oh, alright, so maybe I want him too._ Adam was more focused on the logistics, on the spikes that run along Ronan’s spine and the fear they’re meant to distract from.

 

It wasn’t really til Adam kissed Ronan on the porch, til he was certain of what he wanted and was certain he was going to get it, that that physical, aching hunger struck him, overcame him, burned through him.

 

He shifts so that their legs are pressed together hip to knee and settles further down into the bubbling water, and Ronan presses back, tightening his grip on Adam’s hand. Adam presses the cold soda against one of his cheeks.

 

Adam simmered when he couldn’t have what he wanted. But now that he has it, it’s worse. It’s at the base of his spine and the bridge of his nose and the back of his throat and crawling up and down his arms, all the time, anticipation that knows it will be satisfied, as soon as school ends, as soon as work is over, as soon as Ronan wakes up.

 

He’s on fire and he’s starving and whenever he thinks about it, he smiles.

 

-

 

There’s a field near Aglionby that’s big and empty except for mud. Ronan drives them there one night, late enough that they won’t get caught, and they do donuts, spraying mud, shitty music pounding through the car.

 

Adam can’t catch his breath, the seatbelt tight across his chest, Ronan’s open laugh ringing in the small space, schoolwork spinning out of his mind as they make another sharp turn.

 

They slide to a stop, and Ronan shoots him a sharp smile.

 

“Okay, Parrish. Your turn.”

 

-

 

When Matthew finds out, he’s delighted.

 

Adam didn’t expect him to be anything but happy for the brother who created him, but it’s still nice, it’s good, of course, the way Matthew’s face lights up, the way Ronan’s does too, just a little.

 

They’ve kidnapped Matthew from Declan for lunch after Mass, which Declan is annoyed about, since he has to drive them back to D.C. The brothers are still dressed for church, though sloppily now, loose at the seams.

 

“That’s so great,” Matthew says for the sixth time, and Adam laughs a little, and Matthew leans forward and gives him a light punch on the shoulder, laughing too.

 

At the drive-through, Ronan pays for everyone and orders extra French fries, and Adam wonders if he’s ever seen him so satisfied, so content in a solitary moment.

 

After they eat, they sit in the parking lot for a bit longer drinking their shakes and talking about the car Matthew wants to get when he turns 16, and Adam reaches over to hold Ronan’s hand. He and Matthew have never looked more alike.

 

-

 

Gansey comes home while they’re making out against the pool table, and Adam doesn’t notice til he lets out a startled, “Oh.” The shape of Ronan’s mouth against his tells him Ronan _did_ notice, and Adam pulls back, mildly embarrassed.

 

It’s a work in progress for all of them, really. For Blue and Gansey who hid their relationship for so long, who couldn’t kiss without one party dying. And for Ronan, so used to posturing and concealing. And for Adam, unused to casual touch, unused to intentional gentle touch, unused to being allowed to touch.

 

And for all of them, on a simpler, more embarrassing level, watching their friends dating. Seeing the softness on Gansey’s face when he looks at Blue now. Catching Blue catching the way Ronan touches his hands. Not sure when to tease or when to let it be, yet.

 

The only one unaffected is Henry, who doesn’t bat at an eye at any kind of display of affection, unembarrassed and unjealous.

 

The expression on Gansey’s face when Adam finally looks over is somewhere between flustered and earnestly happy for them. It’s a very common look, these days.

 

“Don’t mind me,” he says, waving at them like they’ll go right back to it as he heads over to his desk.

 

Ronan looks like he’s considering it, so Adam puts a hand over most of Ronan’s face. Ronan licks it, so he pulls it away.

 

“Gansey, the entire main room is your room,” Adam says. “This is the part where _you_ tell _us_ to get a room.”

 

“Nonsense,” Gansey says, and then he brings a book over to his bed and flops down onto his stomach.

 

When he looks up, his face is about level with Ronan’s ass from a few yards away.

 

“Alright,” Gansey concedes, still looking at Ronan’s ass with trepidation. “Perhaps I see your point. But I have no intention of being rude about it.”

 

“I have to leave for work anyway,” Adam says, and Ronan makes an aggrieved noise and shoves his tongue into Adam’s mouth without ceremony for a parting kiss.

 

When Adam is released, Gansey’s nose is in his book and his forehead is a gentle shade of pink.

 

Adam wishes Noah was there, next to Gansey, to make some comment about Gansey being a prude, or about Ronan having a room ten feet away they could go to, or about them violating the pool table. He wishes Noah was there for Ronan to threaten to throw out the window again, to yell with outrage and excitement at the prospect.

 

“What?” Ronan says, his hands on Adam’s sides.

 

Adam shakes his head.

 

“Just thinking about Noah.”

 

For a second, Ronan looks devastated, like he forgot, like he can’t believe he forgot, and then he covers it up with fake shock.

 

“That’s who I usually think about when we make out too,” he says, and Adam laughs, the tension ebbing away.

 

-

 

Sometimes Adam thinks he feels Cabeswater pulling at him. Something in the corner of his eye when he’s at the garage. A minute shift under his feet when he knows he’s near the ley line. A particular swooping sensation in his stomach when he’s squished underneath Ronan in the back of the BMW, not nearly enough room for the two of them, laughing into each other’s mouths.

 

Adam startles a little when he feels it, that feeling that used to mean that Cabeswater was happy that Adam existed and that they existed together, usually accompanied by a vision of crawling vines covered in small blue flowers. He feels it now, as Ronan brings his lips to Adam’s knuckles and darts his eyes across Adam’s face like he’s memorizing him.

 

He does that, sometimes, studies Adam with his eyes and his fingertips like he needs to know every detail, like they’re in a dream and he’s getting ready to pull Adam into the real world.

 

Adam feels that specific feeling, and for a wild moment, he wonders if there’s a piece of Cabeswater still inside of him after all, a piece of Ronan’s dreams, lodged between two of his ribs or snug among his organs, burning him alive from the inside out, happy that Adam exists and that they exist together, him and Cabeswater, him and Ronan.

 

-

 

300 Fox Way is crowded and noisy but not a terrible place to do homework, unless you’re Ronan Lynch, in which case it’s not a terrible place to stroke your magical raven and complain about how boring everyone else is despite being surrounded by psychics.

 

Blue is grunting in frustration at some math problems, and Henry, Gansey, and Adam are taking notes on different chapters of their history textbook to trade later. Every few minutes, Ronan kicks at Adam’s foot until he looks over, and every time he looks over, Ronan is focused entirely on Chainsaw.

 

Adam can’t believe he used to hate Ronan.

 

Orla walks into the kitchen and her eyes find Ronan immediately, as usual. They don’t widen, the way Maura’s had when they entered the house, as she immediately sensed something newly-formed smudging the energy between them. Adam knows that Orla’s power is stronger with a connecting force strung between her and her prospect, that she’d hear it in his voice if he called and asked for Blue, but she probably won’t see it on them.

 

Ronan ignores her, as usual, and he also grabs Adam’s hand on top of the table and holds it. Adam allows him about five seconds.

 

“I need that,” he says.

 

“No,” Ronan says, almost a polite disagreement rather than a command.

 

Adam is persuaded.

 

-

 

Ronan holds him tight, but not as tight as Adam expected.

 

He thought Ronan would be frantic, clinging, even after things settled back into as normal a state as they could. He thought fear would be laced between their fingers and their mouths.

 

He thought Ronan would flinch at every mention of college. But he’s quiet, watchful, almost like he used to be when he wasn’t sure how Adam would react to him looking. He listens carefully when Gansey asks about schools and Adam answers.

 

Adam curls against Ronan’s back, on his mattress on the floor of St. Agnes, and he takes a breath. He doesn’t want to say anything, in case that makes it real, builds a body for his fear. He doesn’t want to feed it to Ronan if it’s not already there.

 

Ronan hasn’t offered to pay for anything, but one afternoon Adam found a college application tip book on his desk. The pages ran out about halfway through, and when Ronan spotted in a few days later he’d looked embarrassed. Adam doesn’t think he dreamed it on purpose.

 

And that afternoon, while Adam submitted his first application, Ronan had sat quietly at the next computer over in the library. He hadn’t even brought Chainsaw inside to terrorize the librarians like he does when Adam’s there for homework. He was quiet and serious while Adam worked.

 

Adam has lost precious hours of sleep picturing the dip of Ronan’s chin when he submitted his first application, when his leaving came closer to being a tangible thing. Instead, it tilted upward with arrogance, Ronan’s arm along the back of Adam’s chair, their ankles touching under the desk, something satisfied and sure in his eyes and his mouth. Adam had tucked that look away for further inspection.

 

And still, still, he isn’t sure what to make of it, isn’t sure if the fear he’s afraid of is real.

 

“Ronan,” he says, like it’s a whole question, like it’s _the_ question.

 

Ronan runs a thumb across Adam’s knuckles.

 

“No,” Ronan says. “We’re happy.”

 

“Okay,” Adam says, but then Ronan continues, quieter.

 

“I want you to do everything you want to do,” he says.

 

“Okay,” Adam says again, and he curls in closer.

 

-

 

There’s a 45-minute break between Adam’s jobs, and Ronan brings him dinner.

 

“Get in,” Adam says as he heads to his car.

 

Ronan shoots him a mildly suspicious look but he follows, holding a fast food bag and two sodas, Chainsaw on his shoulder.

 

Adam drives until he finds a backroad and parks along the shoulder. He gets out and sits on the hood of the Hondoyota in the fading sunlight and waits for Ronan to join him. It’s unseasonably warm and Adam has enough money in his wallet to pay Ronan back and he already finished his homework for tomorrow.

 

Their knees touch and Ronan belches unattractively and Adam leans back against the windshield and closes his eyes. It’s nice.

 

-

 

Adam is used to not having what he wants. He’s not so used to having something and then losing it. He thinks he’s so used to not having that he doesn’t really know how to process loss. He isn’t practiced at it like Ronan, who feels it so completely. To Adam, it feels like a dull ache, ignorable except for when it isn’t.

 

He’s shaken awake and the ceiling of Ronan’s room at Monmouth is blurry and Adam doesn’t understand why until he feels Ronan’s thumbs wipe underneath his eyes. It takes him a moment to register the shushing sounds as something meant to comfort.

 

“It’s gone,” Adam says, but he doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t like how his voice sounds, and he lets Ronan envelop him as he shakes.

 

“I know,” Ronan keeps saying.

 

When Adam stills, Ronan pulls back and wipes at his face again and Adam stares at him, tired and shocked.

 

“I’ve been waiting for this,” Ronan says, a little sad, a lot like he doesn’t mind, so Adam breathes.

 

“Why?” he asks.

 

“Adam,” Ronan says, “what do you think I’d be like if I suddenly couldn’t dream anymore?”

 

“That’s different,” Adam says immediately. “You’ve always been able to -”

 

“Different wound,” Ronan says. “Same pain.”

 

“Okay,” Adam says, and Ronan rolls onto his back and pulls until Adam’s head is on his chest.

 

“That’s still you, you know,” Ronan says, and it’s so nonsensical that Adam lifts up his head to look at him.

 

“What?”

 

“The magician,” Ronan says, not looking at him. “Making connections. Making things work. Solving shit. Getting your fucking hands dirty. That’s you no matter what.”

 

Adam knows Ronan looks at him. He knows Ronan sees him. But he never knows what it is that Ronan sees. Adam Parrish, unknowable only to himself, and a magician to those who bother to know him.

 

“Okay,” he says, because it doesn’t feel true, but that doesn’t make it a lie.

 

-

 

Adam pulls up to the Barns, and Ronan comes out to meet him. Adam’s barely unbuckled when Ronan yanks the door open and climbs inside, straddling him in the cramped space.

 

“Think of the children,” Adam says, although he didn’t see Opal anywhere, and then he kisses Ronan anyway, hands on his thighs in an effort to keep him steady.

 

“Shut up,” Ronan says when he pulls back, and he shifts slightly and leans on the horn, a honking, tragic thing.

 

They both laugh, Ronan falling forward to lean his head on Adam’s shoulder, and Adam brings his arms up around him.

 

“Hi,” Adam finally says.

 

“Hi,” Ronan says into his jacket, muffled.

 

“It’s cold,” Adam says, “and there’s a whole house just over there.”

 

Ronan bites his neck, sharp and quick, and then climbs out of the car. He holds out a hand, and Adam takes it and lets himself be dragged into the warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [lydia---branwell](lydia---branwell.tumblr.com)


End file.
